青木リカです。よろしく！

Day 3 Castaic 8:32PM: What Goes Around Goes Beyond. The Conference End.

And so it is over. The first I-5 DIY Queer Lit Conference concludes with a Filet-O-Fish at the Castaic McDonald’s. Wow.

I had thought to end the conference in Gorman, where I started. Kind of cyclical, right? But as I passed Gorman, I didn’t feel right about it. Too soon. So I drive until it is right. Castaic. If Gorman was the first place I felt “out” of LA, then Castaic is the first place I felt “back.”

That there is over 25 miles between them fascinates me. Is is both and neither the beginning and end of the trip. The 27.4 miles between Gorman and Castaic become queer in a queer conference, caught between everything I set out to do and everything with which I returned.

Something to think about. Something to explore.

That I am not where I started from also makes this place feel much less like a summation or culmination. This is just a place. I am sitting on a chair.

I sit here, at this McDonald’s–the first one all conference with a working Wi-fi. I munch on my Filet-o-Fish.